Special Education in the Social Context (original) (raw)

2019, Special Education in the Social Context MSSE 703 – Syllabus

“Impairment is the rule, and normalcy is the fantasy...We are all nonstandard.” – Lennard J. Davis, The End of Identity Politics (2013a). “There was an increasing tolerance, generally, for cultural diversity, an increasing sense that peoples could be profoundly different, yet all be valuable and equal to one another; an increasing sense that the deaf were a ‘people,’ and not merely a number of isolated, abnormal, disabled individuals; a movement from the medical or pathological view to an anthropological, sociological, or ethnic view ... [Depathologizing led the world to become] more aware of the previously invisible and inaudible deaf; they too became more aware of themselves, of their increasing visibility and power in society.” – Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices (1990/2008) DESCRIPTION/OVERVIEW: This course assists early-career educators examine special education and disability with a variety of lenses. The course overviews the changing roles of service professionals, like teachers and medical teams, who serve people with disabilities. The course design addresses historical and contemporary, and domestic and global issues affecting people with disabilities* that influence how they are positioned within educational, legal, medical, and social institutions. By drawing from various perspectives (e.g. theoretical, philosophical, conceptual, and methodological), the course encourages students to ask critical questions. For instance, how is disability configured in schools with respect to the body, family, language, culture, society, politics, policy, economics, and technology? The course achieves these aims by providing opportunities to understand the practical and conceptual consequences of four models of disability: (1) philological, (2) biomedical, (3) sociocultural, and (4) biosocial. For instance, the biosocial vantage surveys ecological relationships among domains of power that shape deaf education in contemporary society. Course foci include—how theory, models, and services change; how changes affect institutions and people; how changing views on disability affect students with disabilities; and what consequences are inherent or ascribed to dis/ability within educational contexts. On Language: This course uses people-first language. People-first terminology: 1) maintains the dignity/integrity of all humans as individuals, 2) avoids objectifying, denigrating, condescending or overly negative labels or euphemisms. See APA guidelines, (6th Edition, 2010, pp. 72-3, 76) for details. GOALS/STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to (SWBAT): (1) Identify and describe different theoretical models of disability, apply the models toward an understanding of historical and contemporary issues, within domestic and global contexts. (2) Employ theoretical models to explain how people with disabilities are identified, labeled, and served in special education settings. (3) Analyze how special education services and training for professionals have changed by articulating how social systems and human ecological structures contribute to the evolution of teacher preparation and professional training. (4) Articulate how those closest to people with disabilities (particularly the family constellation, special educators, and medical professionals) experience, interpret, understand, and respond to disability in schools. PROGRAM OUTCOMES: The experiences, philosophies, and methods included in this course are designed to: (1) Acculturate MSSE students to the thought processes, values, and practices of highly qualified special educators. (2) Assist teacher-candidates in becoming self-reflective deaf educators who are lifelong learners. (3) Synthesize evidence-based practices, sociological research, and special education practices in preparation for student teaching and early-career teaching. (4) Develop an educational knowledge base that supports the social, academic, and communication needs of diverse deaf students in a variety of educational environments. SKYER’S STATEMENT OF ARTICULATION: An understanding of human nature is incomplete without studying how exceptional humans—in this case, disabled students—exist within social institutions like schools. The course surveys a rapidly evolving and expanding research enterprise. This class will expose you to a corpus of research regarding the thought-processes, practices, and values of special educators, disability scholars, and researchers. While some readings focus on deafness, the majority do not. All readings examine disability, though some focus on impairments and others on exceptionalities. One area of focus for this course is the subject of poverty, which traverses all listed domains of disability. The unifying themes throughout all materials are diversity and change. In this course, we will discuss historical thinking on disability and investigate contemporary issues, addressing both consensus and controversy regarding how people with disabilities are affected by changes in schools and societies. The course discusses disability in human social ecologies, including advancing educational research, biomedical intervention, and socioeconomic stratification within an increasingly globalized planet. The course design provides abundant opportunities to explore educational and sociological problem spaces, those affecting the concrete “real-world” and issues that are more conceptual or theoretical. Considerable effort has been made to select readings and design activities that assist teacher candidates in understanding how disability, special education, and sociology converge in both material and abstract ways. The broad theme for this course is: understanding the role of theory in social research.